Automotive vehicles are commonly equipped with rear view mirrors for enabling the driver to effectively view objects directly behind the vehicle or behind areas alongside the vehicle. Often the vehicle is equipped with an interior rear view mirror located behind the front windshield, and two exterior rear view mirrors mounted on the front doors of the vehicle.
Conventional flat surface rear view mirrors are not completely satisfactory, in that flat surface mirrors cannot completely cover the areas that need to be covered, especially blind spots behind and alongside the rear corners of the vehicle.
To minimize the undesired blind spots it has been proposed to incorporate curved convex reflective surfaces in rear view mirrors. Such convex reflective surfaces minimize blind spots by increasing the mirror's viewing angle. Convex mirror surfaces that are convex in two orthogonal planes are sometimes termed “fisheye” mirror surfaces.
One problem with fisheye mirrors is distortion of the image generated by the mirror surface. Also, the image can be deceptively smaller than images generated by flat-surfaced mirror surfaces. U.S. Pat. No. 5,517,367, issued to R. H. Kim on May 14, 1996, shows a rear view mirror having convex “fisheye” mirror surfaces.